Two recent studies on brains--could they be linked?

the LA Times made quite a splash a couple of weeks ago when it published a story about a study conducted by scientists from NYU and UCLA which showed that the brains of conservatives and liberals differ in the way they process information, perhaps explaining how they came to their political orientation. the story begins:

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work...Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

for comments on the study, the story cites UCal/Berkely professor Frank J. Sulloway, who "was not connected to the study". this could not be further from the truth, according to the blog theironshrink.com. apparently, sulloway headed research in 2003 which found that conservatives were simple and dogmatic. from that study:

“Across dozens of behavioral studies, conservatives have been found to be more structured and persistent in their judgments and approaches to decision-making, as indicated by higher average scores on psychological measures of personal needs for order, structure, and closure. Liberals, by contrast, report higher tolerance of ambiguity and complexity, and greater openness to new experiences on psychological measures.”

it's like deja vu all over again...

it turns out that sulloway's co-author of the 2003 study was a guy named John Jost, who is one of the researchers involved in this new study. but, that's neither here nor there (i guess). sulloway offered his analysis to the news story, that it would probably explain why bush is so single-minded on iraq and why john kerry was seen as a "flip-flopper".

the authors of the study insist that it doesn't show that one political persuasion is superior to the other. they REALLY said that.

which now takes me to another recent study which i read about in a story from science daily.com: Biological Basis For Creativity Linked to Mental Illness. this study, conducted by researchers at the University of Toronto and Harvard University finds that:

...the brains of creative people appear to be more open to incoming stimuli from the surrounding environment. Other people's brains might shut out this same information through a process called "latent inhibition" - defined as an animal's unconscious capacity to ignore stimuli that experience has shown are irrelevant to its needs. Through psychological testing, the researchers showed that creative individuals are much more likely to have low levels of latent inhibition.

this was a surprising finding because, according to the article, scientists previously had thought that failure to screen out stimuli was related to psychosis. now--it's a positive. according to the researchers, "it might also contribute to original thinking, especially when combined with high IQ."

things are not entirely rosy for the creative crowd:

The authors hypothesize that latent inhibition may be positive when combined with high intelligence and good working memory - the capacity to think about many things at once - but negative otherwise. Peterson states: "If you are open to new information, new ideas, you better be able to intelligently and carefully edit and choose. If you have 50 ideas, only two or three are likely to be good. You have to be able to discriminate or you'll get swamped."

...or, get labeled a "flip-flopper"?